About

I work at the University of New England in the high country of New South Wales.  I teach and research in children’s literature and classical reception studies.  I lead the Australasian wing of the ERC-funded Our Mythical Childhood project (Grant agreement No 681202) which traces the reception of classical antiquity in children’s and young adults’ culture.  I am writing a Guide to the field of recent children’s literature inspired by classical antiquity.

Education

BA Hons (English) University of Otago

BA Hons (Latin) University of Otago

MA (English and American Literature) Brandeis University

PhD (English and American Literature) Brandeis University

Blog Posts

    Publications

    Edited Books
    Maurice Gee: A Literary Companion. The Fiction for Young Readers. Ed. Elizabeth Hale. Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2014.
    Marvellous Codes: the Fiction of Margaret Mahy, a collection of critical essays on the New Zealand writer Margaret Mahy.  Eds. Elizabeth Hale and Sarah Fiona Winters. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2005. 

            

     


    Editor, Special Issues of Refereed Journals


    Margaret Mahy, The Lion and the Unicorn, 39 (2) (April 2015). (With Catherine Butler and Alison Waller)


    Barrie Kosky’s The Women of Troy. Didaskalia: The Journal for Ancient Performance.  July 2011.


    The Lost Echo. Australasian Drama Studies, 56 (April 2010).


     

    Book Chapters

    “Katabasis Down Under in New Zealand Children’s Literature: Margaret Mahy and Maurice Gee”.  In Katarzyna Marciniak and Elzbieta Olechowska, Eds. Our Mythical Childhoods.  Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2016.
    Classics, Children’s Literature and the Character of Childhood, from Tom Brown’s Schooldays to The Enchanted Castle.  In Lisa Maurice, Ed. The Reception of Ancient Greece and Rome in Children’s Literature. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2015, 17-29
    “Mining Gee: Salt, Gool, and The Limping Man” in Maurice Gee: A Literary Companion. The Fiction for Young Readers. Ed. Elizabeth Hale. Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2014. 83-100.
    Representation and Responsibility in Under the Mountain and The Fat Man. In Maurice Gee: A Literary Companion. The Fiction for Young Readers. Ed. Elizabeth Hale. Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2014.

    163-180.

     “Truth and Claw: The Beastly Children and Childlike Beasts of Saki, Beatrix Potter, and Kenneth Grahame.”  Worlds Enough and Time: Childhood in Edwardian Fiction.  Eds. Adrienne E. Gavin and Andrew F. Humphries. Palgrave Macmillan December 2008. 191-207.

    “The Case of Mr. Casaubon: Gothic Monstrosity in Middlemarch” in Demons of the Body and Mind: Essays on Disability in Gothic Literature. Ruth Anolik, Ed. Jefferson: North Carolina: McFarland and Company, Inc. (2010)


    “Long-Suffering Professional Females: The Case of Nanny-Lit.”  Chick Lit: The New Woman’s Fiction. Eds. Mallory Young and Suzanne Ferriss. New York: Routledge, 2005.  
    “Underworlds Down Under: The Navigator and Under the Mountain.” Gothic NZ.  Eds. Jennifer Lawn and Misha Kavka.  Dunedin, New Zealand: University of Otago Press, 2006. 101-111.
                  
    Refereed Journal Articles

    “Mosaic and Cornucopia: Fairy Tale and Myth in Contemporary Australian YA Fantasy,” with Sophie Masson. Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature. 54 (3) 44-53.

     

    “Reading Animals in Margaret Mahy’s Poems, Picture Books and Stories for Younger Readers.” The Lion and the Unicorn, 39 (2) (April 2015), 186-203.


    “Environmental Philosophy in The Little Prince” with Michael Allen Fox. Dalhousie Review, 93 (2013): 289-303.


    “James Bond and the Art of Eating Eggs”  Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, 12 (2012), 84-90.


    “The Women of Troy: Barrie Kosky, The Sydney Theatre Company, and Classical Theatre in Australia.” Didaskalia: The Journal for Ancient Performance. 2011.


    “Disability and the Individual Talent: Adolescent Girlhood in The Pillars of the House and What Katy Did.”  Women’s Writing 17 (2) (August 2010): 343-360.  (Article republished in Charlotte Yonge: Rereading Domestic Religious Fiction. Ed. Tamara Wagner. Routledge, 2012.)

    “Sickly Scholars and Healthy Novels: The Classical Scholar in Victorian Fiction.”  International Journal of the Classical Tradition (June 2010)


    The Lost Echo: Introduction.” Australasian Drama Studies, 56 (April 2010). 103-108.


    “The Pursuit of Youth: Adolescence, Seduction, and the Pastoral in Act One of The Lost Echo.” Australasian Drama Studies 56 (April, 2010) 117-130. 
    “Truth-telling Englishmen: Classics as a Test of Character in Victorian School Stories”.  New Voices in Classical Reception Studies. Spring 2008.
    “Turning Away from Formal Education:  John Ruskin and the Scholar Within,” Scholarships in Victorian Britain: Leeds Working Papers in Victorian Studies, 1 (1998): 114 –125.

    “A Close Reading of Longfellow’s ‘Mezzo Cammin’,” Deep South, electronic journal, University of Otago, 1995: http://www.otago.ac.nz/DeepSouth/vol1no1/hale1.html.


     

    Projects

    Our Mythical Childhood: The Reception of Classical Antiquity in Children’s and Young Adults’ Culture in Response to Regional and Global Challenges European Research Council-funded project (2016-2021), led by Prof. Katarzyna Marciniak, Faculty of Artes Liberales, University of Warsaw.  I oversee the Australasian Wing, surveying Southern Hemisphere children’s culture inspired by classical antiquity. See: Our Mythical Childhood Survey for  500+ entries on children’s texts; I also report on findings in the Antipodean Odyssey blog

    I am set editor for the forthcoming 6-volume Routledge Historical Resources in Children’s Literature (1789-1914).

     

    Elizabeth Hale

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    @ehale

    Active 6 years, 6 months ago